and THIRD ARTICLE Meditations of Mother Jeanne de Chantal Jouzel
(THIRD ARTICLE)-The Sisters who wish to prosper and make progress in the way of our Lord must at the beginning of all their actions, both interior and exterior, ask for His grace and offer to His divine goodness whatever good they may do, thus preparing themselves to endure with peace and gentleness of mind, all the trouble and mortification they may meet with, as coming from the fatherly hand of our good God and Savior, whose most holy intention as by such means to make them merit, that he may afterwards recompense them with the abundance of his love. This they must not omit, even in little matters, and such as seem to them of small importance, even though employed in things wholly agreeable and conformable to their will and necessity, such as eating, drinking, resting, recreating, and such like. So that according to the counsel of out of the apostle, whatever they do may be done in the name of God and for His sole pleasure.
Sunday
The simple practice of the Third Article is leading me to a life of union with the Three Divine Persons. Devotion to the Holy Trinity is very special at the Visitation Order, for in the life of the Holy Founder St Francis de Sales one is struck by his entreaties for this devotion.
Besides, devotion to the Most holy Trinity goes with devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is proper to the Visitandines, above all as the Third Article envisages it.
The Sacred Heart is Love, which needs to bestow or diffuse itself. By asking for grace, I allow the Spirit of Love to inundate me at His pleasure. By endurance I fathom new depths and my love becomes a repairing love, uniting itself to the sufferings of Jesus.
By the offering, it re-ascends towards God the Father in order to merit grace for souls. These are all the desires of the Sacred Heart realized.
Yes it is the way He wishes me to follow; it is His own way.
Monday
I must learn on what this sublime and profound doctrine rests. The Third Article(above) is the proof of my love for God. It brings about the habitation of the Holy Trinity in my soul. St Paul said I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to be strengthened by his spirit with might unto the inward man (request for grace) that Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts (charity) that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God(offer all to Him).
All rests on the Gospel and the teaching of the Church so that I can without fear aspire to this way.
Tuesday
“MUST”
I have meditated on the ideal to which I aspire.
I have stirred my will to desire it, giving my will the strength of the Divine Will into which I let it flow.
There remains for me now to take the means to attain my end.
The means are serious because the goal is great. I shall be seized in every fiber of my being, but I do not wish to draw back, my ideal is there to encourage me. I must allow Jesus to live in me by his Holy Spirit in order to glorify his Father. Yes I wish it.
Wednesday
“At the beginning”
In the beginning God said “Let us make man to our image and likeness” Is it not just that the imprint of the Trinity be made at the beginning of each act?
“in the beginning was the Word” therefore each action must be done by Jesus. He must act in me.
In the beginning God poured out His Love. I must respond by abandoning my soul to this outpouring of Love. The request for grace initiates this abandonment but it must be made from the beginning of each act.
Thursday
“of all”
This word ALL so vigorous in its brevity, is repeated 4 times in the above Third Article. I must reserve nothing in my giving, it is the Holy Spirit who reveals this through St Francis de Sales.
And he accentuates it by repeating it in the request the offering and the endurance ;it is useless for me to have any illusions there is no longer to be anything for me everything is for him. Alas have I done this up to now I wish to exclaim with Saint Therese but by completing her words with our third article “dear Lord you are asking for everything yes and I Feel Your Divine pressure in every action but I too shall ask you for everything in order to give you everything. Dearest Lord you deserve everything how true that is and by your might and above all by your love and your merits as Savior but I shall take these merits and add to them my own. By enduring everything I shall offer you all that the Holy Spirit has given me all that Jesus will do in me for that alone oh Eternal Father is truly worthy of you.
Friday
their actions
My life is composed of Acts which succeed each other without interruption now as a whole as well as in each detail at their beginning and at their end they must be done for God even more important is it pursuing always the noble thought that I have been meditating on for several days to realize the words of Saint Paul it is no longer I who live but Jesus who lives who acts in me and it is true that he wishes it so that our Lord is seeking souls in whom he can reproduce a new his life of Savior. Mother Mary Desales has spoken of a time to come that will proceed the bestowal of great Graces on the world and then one shall see as it were the Savior return to the Earth when certain Souls shall live who will serve him as a second humanity and who will act as he did. Now Visitandines are well fitted for being chosen for this Redemptive mission and if among the five or 6,000 of us many would determine to fill this role the reign of the Sacred Heart would be near this fact is food for thought to call me
Saturday
both interior
The question is to transform my life and our blessed Father with his precise instructions shows me to what details he wished to go. The third article gives me more than one light on this subject. My life is composed of actions sometimes interior and sometime and both interior and exterior at the same time. The request for Grace as well as the offering can embrace all our actions. None of our works should be allowed to escape this asking and offering. What a precious method this is which if I had known how to profit more by it would have made me advance in Perfection with the steps of a giant. By interior actions I must understand above all those which are addressed directly to God those which take in the most intimate part those which take place in the most intimate parts of my soul. All my exercises of piety alas how many omissions distractions and failures in generosity they have been all because I did not surround my actions sufficiently with the three points of my third article which are like dams that would have prevented all that is human from invading me; now that I shall employ these seriously in order to draw into my soul the Divine Life.